During this last semester I was in the Foundations of College Writing taught by Dr. Sherry. The class and I learned many things throughout the semester, from how to present our ideas to different groups of people to how other people view education and learning. I am going to use the works that I have done throughout the semester for the portfolio that I am creating to show what I have learned throughout the time in the class. The first work that I did was make a presentation talking about how student's sleep is affected by many different things and not sleeping at night has negative outcomes on students. After the class finished that project we worked on adapting the same information that the gathered for the first project and adapted the genre and style to reflect different situations and styles. And then finally we made a presentation involving the points in time for us about what it means to be educated.
Goal A: Students will be able to compose for particular audiences and purposes.
What this goal is stating is that the students in the class should be able to show the data that they have gathered in different ways to adapt to the group they are presenting to and for the reason why they are presenting. To show that I have accomplished this goal I am going to show the final copy of the EAR project that I did. What this project asked us to do was to take a starting idea and change the way the idea is presented to change to different audiences. For my project I talked about how students sleep at night. It covered what might be keeping them up, what they can do to fall asleep earlier and also data on how college students sleep.
The first part of the project was a flier about what can lead to sleep loss and what sleep loss can cause. The purpose of the flier is to inform students about why it is important to sleep and that it can be damaging if they don't. The second part of the project was a brochure for parents talking about how students sleep. It went into more detail than the flier did and also covered more data than it did to make sure that the parents were well informed and know what might be going on. The third part of the project was a satire though for the students who are in college already and either know that sleeping can be a difficult thing to do at times or just don't care about sleep in general. So with that in mind I made another flier that pretty much made fun of the other flier I had made and said why it is pointless. I feel that this satisfies the goal very well for its multiple uses for the same information that I had depending on the audience.
Goal B: Students are able to compose using language and conventions appropriate to genre.
This goal is stating is that the students should be able to present using established formats of the chosen genre. I am going to use the TELL final to prove this. The TELL project was a project where we chose three different points in our lives; one is the past, one in the present, and one in the future and connect all three pieces together with what we believe it means to be educated.
For the past, I wrote about the championship swim meet I participated in and how I got there, which was through the help of my friends teaching me what to do and driving me forward. For the present I talked about when I got my grades last semester and had failed a class and scored poorly in another. How this connected though was that I learned I needed help from my friends here and there to keep me going on the right path and to give me help with work when I needed it. And finally for the future I talked about when I pay off my house. I elaborate on how my friends helped me get to where I am today and that with there help I got to where I am today. The way that I followed the appropriate genre conventions was that I followed the past, present, and future format along with connecting everything to what I feel it means to be educated, which to me means getting help and learning from others when you need to.
Goal C: Students will be able to read, select, and use evidence critically to formulate and support arguments.
For this goal, we are supposed to to take information gathered from other sources to reinforce a point that you are trying to make. For this I am going to use examples from the CLUE project. This project involved gathering research from multiple sources and presenting them to show the point you are trying to make. I did my entire project on sleep for a college student and what might have an affect on it and if there is anything you can do to improve sleep. I did research by asking students around the dorm what there sleep habits were, along with researching work done by a couple different institutes. I quoted statistics given in the research I read like
"Around 70% of college students are sleep deprived," (2014, Sadigh, M., Himmanen, S., & Scepansky, J.).
That was to show that a fairly large amounts of students have either problems sleeping at night or choose other things over sleep. This supported the argument that I was making and showed that tired students at college are not uncommon (who knew).
Goal D: Students will be able to interpret and compose in a variety of media and print/ non-print genres.
This goal is to make sure that we know how to create in different forms than just one. We have learned to make a multitude of genres throughout the semester and I believe that the EAR final neatly encompassed everything. With all of the multiple parts that this project includes, it truly shows what this goal is asking. I will talk about the C.R.A.P. principles that I used in each project using the flier as my main example. The C stands for contrast, R stands for repetition, A stands for alignment, and P stands for proximity.
In this project the contrast comes from the color choices. I used a dark background and white text, causing contrast between them both. Repetition is from the repeating capitals in all of the major words. Alignment is in how I organized the wording. It follows the boundary of the flier making neat lines around the boarder. And finally for proximity it is the location of the supporting details. I made sure that all of the details went under the heading that made sense for it and were relevant to it. Using those four principles will help make any project or presentation look a lot better and help with the presentation with just about any genre you could need to work with.
Goal E: Students will be able to discuss and apply appropriate writing processes both individually and in collaborative contexts.
This goal is one of the simplest but can also be one of the hardest to do at times and that is to make revisions based on what other people suggest to you and what you notice about your own work. Throughout the class we would do this multiple times to make sure that everyone's projects were the best that they could possibly be. We would fill out peer review sheets and find the weak points in our work and on top of that Dr. Sherry would also go and review your drafts also. Here is an example of one of his drafts:
With the help that Dr. Sherry provides it is hard to do wrong on the work. He informs you on things that need improvement and shows what your grade might be at the end of the project. Along with using the help that Dr. Sherry provides along with peer review, there is a final way to make revisions to your work and that is looking over your own work. It seems like a straightforward thing but it isn't done as often as it should be. Just by looking at your own work it is possible to find a majority of the mistakes that you might make.
Capodanno Portfolio
Adam Capodanno
Dr. Sherry
Foundations of College Writing
During this last semester I was in the Foundations of College Writing taught by Dr. Sherry. The class and I learned many things throughout the semester, from how to present our ideas to different groups of people to how other people view education and learning. I am going to use the works that I have done throughout the semester for the portfolio that I am creating to show what I have learned throughout the time in the class. The first work that I did was make a presentation talking about how student's sleep is affected by many different things and not sleeping at night has negative outcomes on students. After the class finished that project we worked on adapting the same information that the gathered for the first project and adapted the genre and style to reflect different situations and styles. And then finally we made a presentation involving the points in time for us about what it means to be educated.
Goal A: Students will be able to compose for particular audiences and purposes.
What this goal is stating is that the students in the class should be able to show the data that they have gathered in different ways to adapt to the group they are presenting to and for the reason why they are presenting. To show that I have accomplished this goal I am going to show the final copy of the EAR project that I did. What this project asked us to do was to take a starting idea and change the way the idea is presented to change to different audiences. For my project I talked about how students sleep at night. It covered what might be keeping them up, what they can do to fall asleep earlier and also data on how college students sleep.
The first part of the project was a flier about what can lead to sleep loss and what sleep loss can cause. The purpose of the flier is to inform students about why it is important to sleep and that it can be damaging if they don't. The second part of the project was a brochure for parents talking about how students sleep. It went into more detail than the flier did and also covered more data than it did to make sure that the parents were well informed and know what might be going on. The third part of the project was a satire though for the students who are in college already and either know that sleeping can be a difficult thing to do at times or just don't care about sleep in general. So with that in mind I made another flier that pretty much made fun of the other flier I had made and said why it is pointless. I feel that this satisfies the goal very well for its multiple uses for the same information that I had depending on the audience.
Goal B: Students are able to compose using language and conventions appropriate to genre.
This goal is stating is that the students should be able to present using established formats of the chosen genre. I am going to use the TELL final to prove this. The TELL project was a project where we chose three different points in our lives; one is the past, one in the present, and one in the future and connect all three pieces together with what we believe it means to be educated.
For the past, I wrote about the championship swim meet I participated in and how I got there, which was through the help of my friends teaching me what to do and driving me forward. For the present I talked about when I got my grades last semester and had failed a class and scored poorly in another. How this connected though was that I learned I needed help from my friends here and there to keep me going on the right path and to give me help with work when I needed it. And finally for the future I talked about when I pay off my house. I elaborate on how my friends helped me get to where I am today and that with there help I got to where I am today. The way that I followed the appropriate genre conventions was that I followed the past, present, and future format along with connecting everything to what I feel it means to be educated, which to me means getting help and learning from others when you need to.
Goal C: Students will be able to read, select, and use evidence critically to formulate and support arguments.
For this goal, we are supposed to to take information gathered from other sources to reinforce a point that you are trying to make. For this I am going to use examples from the CLUE project. This project involved gathering research from multiple sources and presenting them to show the point you are trying to make. I did my entire project on sleep for a college student and what might have an affect on it and if there is anything you can do to improve sleep. I did research by asking students around the dorm what there sleep habits were, along with researching work done by a couple different institutes. I quoted statistics given in the research I read like
"Around 70% of college students are sleep deprived," (2014, Sadigh, M., Himmanen, S., & Scepansky, J.).
That was to show that a fairly large amounts of students have either problems sleeping at night or choose other things over sleep. This supported the argument that I was making and showed that tired students at college are not uncommon (who knew).
Goal D: Students will be able to interpret and compose in a variety of media and print/ non-print genres.
This goal is to make sure that we know how to create in different forms than just one. We have learned to make a multitude of genres throughout the semester and I believe that the EAR final neatly encompassed everything. With all of the multiple parts that this project includes, it truly shows what this goal is asking. I will talk about the C.R.A.P. principles that I used in each project using the flier as my main example. The C stands for contrast, R stands for repetition, A stands for alignment, and P stands for proximity.
In this project the contrast comes from the color choices. I used a dark background and white text, causing contrast between them both. Repetition is from the repeating capitals in all of the major words. Alignment is in how I organized the wording. It follows the boundary of the flier making neat lines around the boarder. And finally for proximity it is the location of the supporting details. I made sure that all of the details went under the heading that made sense for it and were relevant to it. Using those four principles will help make any project or presentation look a lot better and help with the presentation with just about any genre you could need to work with.
Goal E: Students will be able to discuss and apply appropriate writing processes both individually and in collaborative contexts.
This goal is one of the simplest but can also be one of the hardest to do at times and that is to make revisions based on what other people suggest to you and what you notice about your own work. Throughout the class we would do this multiple times to make sure that everyone's projects were the best that they could possibly be. We would fill out peer review sheets and find the weak points in our work and on top of that Dr. Sherry would also go and review your drafts also. Here is an example of one of his drafts:
With the help that Dr. Sherry provides it is hard to do wrong on the work. He informs you on things that need improvement and shows what your grade might be at the end of the project. Along with using the help that Dr. Sherry provides along with peer review, there is a final way to make revisions to your work and that is looking over your own work. It seems like a straightforward thing but it isn't done as often as it should be. Just by looking at your own work it is possible to find a majority of the mistakes that you might make.